Ruling — Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition)

← Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition)

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition)bg-181279-en-1e

To play Fury of Dracula, follow these procedures:

**Setup**

1. Unfold the game board and place it in the center of the play area within reach of all players.[1][2]

2. Place the influence marker on space '0' of the influence track.[1][2]

3. Place the time marker on the yellow Monday (day) space on the time track.[1][2]

4. Assign roles: one player chooses to control Dracula and sits near the side of the board showing the trail, while the remaining players each choose a hunter to control.[1][2]

5. Each player takes a character sheet and figure, each hunter takes one hunter reference card, and Dracula takes the reference map.[1][2]

6. Prepare Hunter cards: shuffle all item cards and place them facedown near the board; shuffle both the hunter and Dracula event cards together into a single deck and place it near the item deck; and sort the hunter combat cards by type into three distinct piles near the item deck.[1][2]

7. Prepare Dracula cards: sort the encounter cards and Dracula combat cards into two separate decks and individually shuffle them, then create the location deck by organizing the location cards numerically and place all three decks faced to the board near Dracula's side.[1][2]

8. Create Token Pool: place ticket tokens facedown near the board and randomize them, then separate the remaining tokens by type and place them in piles near the board.[1][2]

9. Place hunters: Lord Godalming is placed in Constanta (A), Dr. John Seward is placed in Marseilles (B), Mina Harker is placed in Brussels (C), and Van Helsing is placed in Amsterdam (D).[3]

10. Dracula's starting location: Dracula chooses a starting location by secretly searching his location cards for a matching card, then places that card facedown on the first space of the trail and places his figure on the red circle near the first space of the trail.[3] Dracula cannot choose a sea zone, Castle Dracula, or a city occupied by a hunter.[3]

11. Dracula draws five encounter cards for his starting hand.[3]

**Turn Sequence**

The game is played over a series of rounds, each consisting of a hunter phase followed by a Dracula phase.[4]

**Hunter Phase**

1. Dawn (day combat).[2]

2. Day: Each hunter performs one action.[4][2] During the day, hunters can move around Europe and search for Dracula.[4] A move action allows a hunter to move to a city or sea zone via road, railway (by spending a ticket token), or sea (if in a port or sea zone).[4]

3. Dusk (night combat).[2]

4. Night: Each hunter performs one action.[4][2] During the night, hunters can investigate and prepare for the upcoming day.[4]

**Dracula Phase**

1. Movement Step.[2]

2. Encounter Step.[2]

**Combat**

If a hunter is on the same city as Dracula at dawn or dusk, combat occurs.[5]

1. Before combat, the hunter takes one 'Dodge,' 'Punch,' and 'Escape' card from the hunter combat card piles and adds them to his hand of item cards.[5] Dracula shuffles the Dracula combat deck and draws five cards.[5]

2. Choose combat cards: Each player chooses one card from his hand and places it facedown; the hunter must choose a card with a banner (red banner for items or yellow banner for combat cards).[5]

3. Reveal combat cards: Both players simultaneously reveal their chosen cards.[5]

4. Compare combat Icons: Players check if the combat icon on Dracula's card matches a highlighted combat icon on the hunter's card; if it does, Dracula's card effect is canceled and the card is flipped facedown.[5]

5. Resolve Dracula's Effect: If Dracula's card was not canceled, he resolves the effect and flips the card facedown.[5]

6. Resolve Hunter's Effect: If the hunter's card was not canceled, the hunter resolves the effect.[5]

7. Refresh Hands: Dracula draws the top card of the Dracula combat deck; in subsequent rounds, the hunter's previously played combat card is returned to his hand.[5]

Combat continues until Dracula has played six cards, Dracula wins, the hunters win, all hunters involved are bitten, defeated, or escaped, or Dracula resolves 'Escape as Bat' or 'Escape as Mist'.[5]

**Winning the Game**

* **Dracula wins** by advancing the influence track to space '13'.[5]

* **The hunters win** by finding and defeating Dracula [4,

[1] RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook · p.4 · S etup · Fewer Than Five Players

[2] RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook · p.4

[3] RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook · p.5 · Fewer Than Five Players · Players as Hunters or Dracula · O bject of the Game · A Guide for New Hunters

[4] RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook · p.6 · P laying the Game · Hunter Phase · Move Action · What Are Locations?

[5] RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook · p.12 · Combat

Question closed. Friendships intact.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 95 ms · ask 7270 ms · total 7367 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 7367 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 10, "score": 0.047643, "snippet": "After a player draws an event card, he must read the card to determine when it is resolved. The top of each event card contains timing text that indicates when the card can be played. Some cards need to be played immediately while other cards can be used later at specific times. newSpAper reportS Im", "headingPath": "Event Cards · Item Cards", "sharpsignalDocId": 745}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.046898, "snippet": "If a hunter is on the same city as Dracula at dawn or dusk, combat occurs. Before combat begins, the Hunter takes one 'Dodge,' 'Punch,' and 'Escape' card from the hunter combat card piles and adds them to his hand of item cards-these cards do not count toward his hand limit. Then, Dracula shuffles t", "headingPath": "Combat", "sharpsignalDocId": 745}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.0463, "snippet": "F ury of Dracula is played over a series of game rounds. Each round consists of a hunter phase followed by a Dracula phase. Rounds continue until the game ends (see 'Winning the Game' on page 9). Each hunter phase contains both day and night . During day, hunters can move around Europe and search fo", "headingPath": "P laying the Game · Hunter Phase · Move Action · What Are Locations?", "sharpsignalDocId": 745}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.046147, "snippet": "W HEn setting up a game of Fury of Dracula , players perform the following steps: Place Game Board: Unfold the game board and place it in the center of the play area within reach of all players. Set Influence Track: Place the influence marker on space '0' of the influence track. Set Time Track: Plac", "headingPath": "S etup · Fewer Than Five Players", "sharpsignalDocId": 745}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.045445, "snippet": "4 Setup W HEn setting up a game of Fury of Dracula, players perform the following steps: 1. Place Game Board: Unfold the game board and place it in the center of the play area within reach of all players. 2. Set Influence Track: Place the influence marker on space “0” of the influence track. 3. Set ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 745}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.044796, "snippet": "Draw Encounter cards: Dracula draws five encounter cards for his starting hand. Place Hunters: Each hunter places his figures on a city on the board. Lord Godalming is placed in Constanta (A), Dr. John Seward is placed in Marseilles (B), Mina Harker is placed in Brussels (C), and Van Helsing is plac", "headingPath": "Fewer Than Five Players · Players as Hunters or Dracula · O bject of the Game · A Guide for New Hunters", "sharpsignalDocId": 745}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.043009, "snippet": "When a hunter performs a special action, he resolves either an effect from an event card in his hand or an ability from his character sheet that specifies that it can be used as an action. To move by railway, hunters need to reserve tickets. When a hunter performs a reserve a ticket action, he gains", "headingPath": "Special Action · Reserve a Ticket Action · Rest Action · Search Action", "sharpsignalDocId": 745}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "† Search: Reveal and resolve all encounter cards in your city . † Special: Use an action from a character sheet or event card. † Supply: Draw an item card (large city only) then, draw an event card (top during day , bottom during night). † Trade: Exchange item cards with any hunters in your city . A", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 745}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "S etup · Fewer Than Five Players", "sharpsignalDocId": 745}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 745}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Fewer Than Five Players · Players as Hunters or Dracula · O bject of the Game · A Guide for New Hunters", "sharpsignalDocId": 745}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "P laying the Game · Hunter Phase · Move Action · What Are Locations?", "sharpsignalDocId": 745}, {"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Combat", "sharpsignalDocId": 745}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 745 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 745 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.90020 of 3487 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 25, 2026 23:40 UTC

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	Event Cards · Item Cards	p.10	0.047643 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	Combat	p.12	0.046898 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	P laying the Game · Hunter Phase · Move Action · What Are Locations?	p.6	0.0463 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	S etup · Fewer Than Five Players	p.4	0.046147 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)		p.4	0.045445 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	Fewer Than Five Players · Players as Hunters or Dracula · O bject of the Game · A Guide for New Hunters	p.5	0.044796 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	Special Action · Reserve a Ticket Action · Rest Action · Search Action	p.7	0.043009 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)		p.4	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 37 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	S etup · Fewer Than Five Players	p.4	#4	0.046147 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	P laying the Game · Hunter Phase · Move Action · What Are Locations?	p.6	#3	0.0463 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	A dvanced Rules · Lairs	p.15	#12	0.027864 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	G ame Overview	p.2	#30	0.011628 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	Fewer Than Five Players · Players as Hunters or Dracula · O bject of the Game · A Guide for New Hunters	p.5	#6	0.044796 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	Combat	p.12	#2	0.046898 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)		p.4	#5	0.045445 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	Event Cards · Item Cards	p.10	#1	0.047643 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	S etup · Fewer Than Five Players	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)		p.4	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	Fewer Than Five Players · Players as Hunters or Dracula · O bject of the Game · A Guide for New Hunters	p.5	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	P laying the Game · Hunter Phase · Move Action · What Are Locations?	p.6	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) — Rulebook (corpus doc 745)	Combat	p.12	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 95 ms · first delta 2165 ms · total 7367 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 95 ms · ask 7270 ms · gateway work 7367 ms · total 7367 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3734
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 1024
tok/sec: 200.9 tok/sec — 1024 output tokens in 5.097 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 56s ago)
gateway schema (read from the running child): schema head 0042_definer_search_path (live revision not readable by this principal)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 60h, checked 2s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 679), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.